Freak of the WeekTiny Town Times is a publication for Ithacan-Americans and lovers of Tiny Towns across the US.http://tinytowntimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=35&layout=blog&Itemid=54
Fri, 18 Aug 2017 04:53:48 +0000Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Managementen-gbHerb Alpert Finger Puppeteers Bring Joy to Sunday Workershttp://tinytowntimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1960:herb-alpert-finger-puppeteers-bring-joy-to-sunday-workers&catid=35:freak-of-the-week&Itemid=54
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]]>you@yourdomain.com (Administrator)Freak of the WeekMon, 12 Jan 2015 05:24:32 +0000Chad is Back! And he brought the Lucky Monkey with him!http://tinytowntimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1844:chad-is-back-and-he-brought-the-lucky-monkey-with-him&catid=35:freak-of-the-week&Itemid=54
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Need we say more? Chad is back! The Super AdQ Guy with the Funky Monkey with the skull and ... The Lucky Ithaca Monkey Brick!

Tiny Town, USA – We are accustomed to getting our zombie fix at county board meetings. But Friday's mixer promises to be within easy grasp of anyone who already vomited on themselves during happy hour.

A crew of the grateful undead are inviting others to join them for the first Ithaca Zombie Lurch. The poster ←here should give you all the information needed and we are told zombie tee-shirts also will be available.

Costumes are welcome and participants are encouraged to accessorize with blood and gore.

While necrophilia in New York is not punishable by law, the health department strongly advises against it. Also, the undead charter a queasy gray zone where animate life and inanimate life seem to co-exist. As they are mostly interested in eating living human beings, especially sloppy seconds from the corpus callossum, it occurs to us to warn participants of the inherent dangers of entering into coital relations with one of the undead. At the very least, it is considered unhygienic.

The breakdown of organic tissue into simpler forms of matter, commonly referred to as "decomposition" is by its nature a malodorous event. Further caution is advised if one experiences an undead being with the bloat. Bloat is the second stage of decomposition and is not to be confused with the pasty puff of a carbo-loaded Metrosexual. If any undead exhibit cadaverous bloat, keep your distance. Serious microbial proliferation is underway; the purging of gases and liquids is at times explosive. Tip: The combustible undead's countenance is usually obscured by a seething hatch of blowflies. . For this reason Hazmat suits are recommended for scenesters who just want to view the lurch.

This, from co-organizer Aner Tal:

"The undead shall gather at the Chapter House at 8 p.m. and lurch to the Commons at 8:45, gathering on the Aurora end at 9:00 (near Madeleine’s) and the Cayuga end at 10:00 (near Evolution, where Ithaca is Zombies t-shirts will be sold). From there the zombies will lurch on to Felicia’s and The Westy at 10:45. Participating bars include Chapter House, Kilpatrick’s, Madeleine’s, Bandwagon, Delilah’s, Culture Shock, Chanticleer, Felicia’s and The Westy. Those bars will offer specials to zombies. Survivors of the lurch who’ve stuck with it from Aurora to the Westy will participate in a raffle for some cool stuff we’re gathering.

The event is co-sponsored by Ithaca Improv Everywhere and the Cornell GPSC.

I’m attaching the promotional poster and T-shirt (which we’re pre-selling them (Fruit of the Loom) at a cut-throat $10 for those who order before the event, $12 day of, with limited quantities available – it’s not to make a profit, btw, just because I think it’s fucking cool to have that tshirt showing around town). Both designed by Oded Naaman."

Wild Things Sanctuary (WTS) is dedicated to helping native wildlife though rescue and rehab of debilitated, orphaned and/or displaced animals until they are ready for release into the wild. WTS also aims to provide a sanctuary for non-releasable native animals. The sanctuary is committed to improving the well-being of wildlife through pubic educaiton with a focus on safe and peaceful coexistence between humans and wildlife while emphasizing the importance of wildlife to human life and the environment we share together.

]]>you@yourdomain.com (Administrator)Freak of the WeekWed, 03 Aug 2011 00:13:23 +0000Jesus and Satan team up with Park Outdoor to pose a question about your soulhttp://tinytowntimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=637:jesus-and-satan-team-up-with-park-outdoor-to-put-your-soul-to-the-test&catid=35:freak-of-the-week&Itemid=54
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A SOULFUL QUESTION FOR THE AMBIVALENT:Can't make up your mind about who should get your soul? Park Outdoor is there to serve as a DeFault Soul Recipient (DSR) and it says so right at the bottom of this billboard in Elmira Heights, where people know a thing or two about losing their souls.

Tiny Town Satellite of Elmira Hgts – The question is simple – the editorial use of "We" suggests a third party is involved in this life or death "advertisement."

And lo! Who but Park Outdoor?

Yes! The deceased Roy Park, national Pennysaver and billboard mogul, railroad tycoon, fish monger and world class snake charmer, kicker of Carpet Bagging ass since the Reconstruction Period, speaks to us from beyond the pale horizon of mortal beings.

In his time this immortal consorted with all manner of saint and sinner. It was never clear whose side he was on but it is clear that our late local billionaire is now interested in much bigger stuff than making bucks off Corporate Christians and baffling the Ithaca College Board of Trustees with bricks and mortar instead of big fat endowments.

He wants us to make a choice. Not today, necessarily, but right soon, ya heah? If no decision comes, Park Outdoor gets your soul. It's just that simple.

Clever man he is, we see Park still working both sides of the gambit. He leaves the decision to each motorist and pedestrian. At last count, he was as successful snatching souls as Citigroup was at subsidizing subprime mortgages.

He doesn't even care if these blown up digitized images are crapass. He knows we know that THAT's Jesus, the non-perishable son of G-d, on the left, and that THAT's a Filipino Box Spring Hog marinated in tandoori and roasted to perfection, on the right.

What a guy ol' Royal Horatio Park! A man who had his own personal landscaping crew to attend those prodigious eyebrows! -- and who knows? Once he passed this earthly manure pile, those heat and light seeking brows may have grown and grown, ever toward the starry climes where he now travels; tiny tendrils piercing invisible seams in his golden tomb of Hammurabi ... rise! rise antennae, rise! like the grasses along the Ypres Salient; surgically invading the graveyard turf, immune to fertilizers, a great intelligence, at work, fronds retreating at the sound of mowers and edgers ... nibbled at by ruminant and weasel to their distaste but a useful floss for cats, confusing pheasant and peacock, butterfly dog and plant pathologist -- Brows of no minor player in the Roman Pantheon -- friend to the Greek shipping magnate, and the King of Nestlé Quik!

Welcome back old fella! We knew you'd send us a message sooner or later.

And fiendishly clever of you to outwit that wacko Cayuga Heights mayor who was giving your daughter such trouble about the deer. He's gone -- and ... and -- YOU are here.

Tiny Town, USA – People -- strangers -- are never quite who we think they are. Unless you're very good at reading people, that is. Certain poker players have developed this skill into an art.

Anyway. This is Alex.

He's a familiar figure on the downtown scene, knocking about here and there with a western-style kerchief or a scarf around his neck, showing up at public meetings, outdoor protests, musical gatherings.

We never bothered to engage him in conversation, writing him off as just another local eccentric; light in the loafers: heavy on the meds.

Recently that changed. We ran into him in Buffalo Street Books as he insinuated himself into a conversation about Peter Lorre, the actor.

Turns out Alex once sat next to Peter Lorre, in New York. Alex said he didn't want bother Mr. Lorre so he just sat there quietly.

We thought that was the end of it and we waited for him to move it along.

But, as turns out, this was just an introductory story.

For Alex had a far more intimate brush with Hollywood when he worked with Robert Downey Sr. on a film in New York, he told us. (Baby Downey, Jr., was there as well, says Alex, but he was just a wee sprat then, hardly big enough to tip a jigger of rock n' rye).

The film was called "Greaser's Palace" a vulgar B-movie send-up of the Life of Christ. The New York Times panned it in a review on Aug. 1, 1972.

At the time, Downey Sr., was best known for the movie "Putney Swope"; but Downey also was a master of the offbeat super low budget film. That makes "Greaser's Palace" an unusual flick. Shot in New Mexico, the film cost $1 million at the time, an extraordinary chunk of change for Downey to blow on a production. Detractors say he used it to poor ends, but "Greaser's Palace" is a cult classic today, according to Prof. Wiki.

Alex asked us if we could guess what role he played in the movie. We were stumped: A cross-dressing Pontius Pilate perhaps?

He gave me his screen name and we searched online -- there it was: Alex Hitchcock.

He played The Nun. We weren't that far off. Maybe we should take up poker.

TINY TOWN, USA –With another dead Kennedy in the national boneyard and pop singers like MJ who refuse to die, it is with great relief and pleasure we report the spirit of Tiny Tim as alive and well in Tiny Town.

The manchild we call Narcissus (pictured above left) cannot play a lick on his tiny guitar. But his presence alone suffused the barren Downtown Central Business District with a peaceful, honey-lighted special effect on Aug. 29. Good enough for Tiny News!

Key differences between Tiny Town's Tiny Tim and the original: Our Tiny Tim cannot sing or play music. However, his haunting atonal mewings are spine tingling. Secondly: Our Tiny Tim has a guitar, not a ukulele. Thirdly: Our Tiny Tim is right-handed. The original Tiny Tim was a southpaw, like Jimi Hendrix, who was born here, and the superb Tiny Town-bred guitarist Peter Salidar.

For these reasons and for the fact that it is important to provide content for TTT until we get the weekend police activity log up and going (Cop Central PR often doesn't post weekend wrap-ups until late Monday) we bring you this newsy bagatelle.

In 1932, Mr. Tim was born Herbert Khaury, son of a Lebanese Maronite Catholic dad and a Polish mom who was Jewish. That alone makes him somebody worth remembering as the World Bank considers bringing the winter Olympics to Beirut.

He died in 1996, curiously, from a second heart attack that struck him down during a performance of his signature tune "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" played at a Gala Benefit of The Woman's Club of Minneapolis, MN. (this according to Prof. Wik I. P'Dia).

What man hasn't suffered a touch of angina at a woman's club, we ask you?

Tiny Town's Tiny Tim looks fairly robust these days and we look forward to years and years of him. While our boy appears to lack any redeeming social significance or musical knowledge whatsoever, he nonetheless belongs here because he IS here and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do to make him go away.

No, you won't hear him singing old Tin Pan Alley tunes or see him charming TV audiences with his eccentric falsetto. You will find him occasionally in face paint, talking to himself and presenting odd facial affects as he flounces down The Commons.

He is a freak! But he's our freak.

And as we bury another Kennedy secret, as the nation gasps when it turns out MJ was merely in a demerol coma and claw marks are found on the inside of his coffin lid, as the body count goes up across the globe in wars only a Christian could dream up and a Muslim take seriously, God/Allah Bless Tiny Tim, where ever you are.

TINY TOWN, USA –– Jonathan Livingston Seagull -- one of numerous attempts to translate the thoughts of shore birds into English -- was published almost 40 years ago.

America's municipal water supplies were poisoned with LSD at the time so naturally it became a national bestseller.

Richard Bach, the author, apparently spoke with sea gulls. He is not to be confused with Joe Mitchell, author of Joe Gould's Secret, a superior text printed in The New Yorker around the same era and reprinted in Up in the Old Hotel. Joe Gould, a.k.a. "Professor Seagull," actually spoke seagullese.

In a lucky but not at all transcendent incident, the 39th offspring of J.L. Seagull met with our shore bird unit for an interview recently. The gull, who calls himself "Triple-X-9er," reflected on his legacy and not without a few squawks about Mr. Bach.

Here is a partial translation of what he had to say. The reporter's questions have been removed for ease of reading:

"Fock you! Fock you! Fock you and you and you! (Triple-X-9er was cursing other gulls who came nearby) ... And fock Richard Bach too! Gimme a french fry, gimme another french fry. Gimme some bread. More. More!

See? This is what a focking seagull does, ok? We eat shit fock and flock and lead miserable lives. No one of us escapes. J.L. Livingston got into some bad clams back in the day and filled that Bach guy up with a lot of mystic babble.

What focking seagull doesn't know how to fly? Tell me. You're a focking seagull, you fly. You don't fly, we peck you to death and eat you. Or the wharf rats get you. Fock you! Fock you! (another gull attempts to get in on the action) Gimme another french fry.

Growing up I caught a lot of crap from the other gulls about J.L. He's a focking laughingstock. The fock did he get out of it? A bucket of bait and some freakin stale bread. Meanwhile the little Jew bahstid who wrote the book gets a million dollars. Did that sonofabitch get to Nirvana? Bet your ass he did. Meanwhile J.L. flew into a prop plane outta La Guardia, but you don't read about that shit, do you?

I come up here following the Santaro garbage trucks ... I been to Fresh Kills, Seneca Falls, I seen a lotta good dumps. But no dump is better than this place (Tiny Town's Alewife Park) ... Fock you! Fock you! (another gull came by) ... You wouldn't believe the shit some of these people feed us. Yestidday I gotta chunk of pannini -- with the cheese and spinach still in it! This morning a guy pukes up his breakfast! It was all intact! A focking Greek omelette, rye toast and home fries. Me and a coupla the boys settled down on that shit and was there a hellzapoppin' fight over who got the feta!

"Boids of a feta," I joked. A coupla them laughed and I made my move and got the better of that omelette lemme tell you.